DUBLIN BELLYBUSTERS

Day 9: Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
All attempts at an early start were futile. We dragged ourselves out of bed at 1pm, showered and headed out into the beautiful sunny day. A Tapas Lunch overlooking the bay was just the kick-start we all needed. Patrick was particularly dopey as his 'allergies' kept him awake much of the night, tossing and turning (probably more of the former) in the fold-out bed which he bizarrely insta-claimed on our arrival, a schoolboy error which he almost insta-regretted!

After lunch, we took the Funicular up the hill to the kids carnival. A couple of rounds of beers and pacharans later, we were ready for some prop-bet tomfoolery. Patrick beat me by 2 seconds on the aqua-bumper car time trials (although I did whack into the greater number of six-year old children), we drew level in the mallet-swinging strength contest (admittedly his effort appeared more manly as he didn't scream out in pain and claim possible broken fingers) and sadly, we couldn't think of a way to bet on the trampolining!

Fearing our pasty white skin was being incrementally fried by the afternoon sun, Patrick and I made the case to Nick that we should descend the mountain. We headed back to the hotel for towels, grabbed sun-screen from the farmacia and made our way down to the beach for a swim.

Adorning my newly purchased James Bond (Daniel Craig) swim-trunks, I strode into the ocean and (leaving Nick in my wake) swam half a kilometer out to a platform in the sea from which you could relax, dive and slide from a water slide back into the ocean. The scene was truly majestic - San Sebastian's horse-shoe beach, a blazing hot Sun, the mountains, the ocean, the wonderful architecture of the city and of course, the sight of Dr Fill and his luminous orange swim-shorts, stranded back on land.

Five minutes earlier, Patrick had suffered some sort of pussy asthma attack/panic attack. 'I give up', he uttered (not for the first time on this trip), after we got deep enough for the water to reach his knees. 'You guys go on without me!' And that we did, leaving the boy in the bubble to return to terra firma where he hooked himself up to a ventilator and then no doubt got shot down by copious volumes of Basque beauties!

After our swim, we wandered back to the hotel. It was 10pm before we headed back into town for dinner. We had a superb meal in a top-class restaurant where we polished off three bottles of the finest local Cava (One by Patrick and I and the other two by Nick on his own!) To start, Nick had soup, Patrick had a selection of local meats and I had a pan-seared piece of foie gras. For mains, we had three massive T-Bone steaks. Nick's steak came medium, Patrick's came rare and mine was blue, much to the upset of Nick who felt the need to photograph and facebook it. Believing Patrick's meat was to rare for him, Nick threw down a challenge to him - €50 if you eat every piece of meat on your plate. Patrick accepted the challenge. Half an hour later, Patrick's empty plate was cleared and he was ordering cake. Pass the Sugah and the dessert menu!

After dinner, we popped into one of the many bars and had another few drinks. Nick ordered a screwdriver and was handed a cork-screw. Meanwhile, Patrick, having been shotdown by every Irish woman in Dublin, was busy being shotdown by the only three Irish women in San Sebastian. In his defense, they all had boyfriends but, then again, that's what they would say if Patrick was chatting them up. In any case, it was nice to have a conversation with some English-speakers, which was more than we could have had with Nick who was already mumbling his own variety of drunken jibberish (mostly slurred comments about what a beast rounder63 is and how he wants to rape Jeff Schulman on Scott Cook's behalf!)

The bar closed at 2am and we made our way back to the hotel - a twenty minute beach-walk that turned into an hour of drunken madness. The protagonist... an inebriated Rounder63. The antagonist... an expert prankster by the name of LAPPIN. The cameraman... a half-complicit/half-petrified Dr Fill Good. Lights, camera, action as on three separate occasions, Rounder63 stripped down to his underpants and ran hysterically into the sea. What was he doing? The first time he was teaching Jeff Schulman a lesson. The second time, he was goaded (by LAPPIN) to touch the boat. The third time, he was goaded (by LAPPIN) to touch the boat (Having been talked back out of the water by Dr Fill the previous time).

The film documenting Rounder63's nocturnal beach-escapades has yet to be edited but suffice to say that when it is, it will be uploaded onto the net (and this site). If the clips I've already seen are anything to go by, it is destined to be a classic piece of youtubia!